After South Korea’s president and his replacement were both deposed over a failed bid to impose martial law, deepening political turmoil is threatening the country’s currency and shaking confidence in its economy.The won, which plunged Friday to its lowest level against the dollar since 2009, has been in near-constant decline since President Yoon Suk Yeol’s attempt to scrap civilian rule in early December.Business and consumer confidence in Asia’s fourth-largest economy have also taken their biggest hit since the start of the Covid-19 pandemic, according to figures released by the Bank of Korea.Lawmakers impeached Yoon in mid-December on charges of insurrection, and on Friday they impeached his successor, acting president and prime minister Han Duck-soo, arguing that he refused demands to complete Yoon’s removal from office and bring him to justice.That thrust Finance Minister Choi Sang-mok into the additional roles of acting president and prime minister.Choi has pledged to do all he can to end “this period of turmoil” and resolve the political crisis gripping the country.- Constitutional question –At the heart of the stalemate is the Constitutional Court, which will decide whether to uphold parliament’s decision to impeach Yoon.It must do so by a two-thirds majority, however. And because three of the court’s nine seats are currently vacant, a unanimous vote is required to confirm the suspended president’s removal.Otherwise, Yoon will be automatically returned to office.Lawmakers on Thursday nominated three judges to fill the vacant seats, but acting president Han refused to approve them, precipitating his own impeachment.After an acrimonious day in which lawmakers from Yoon’s party erupted in protest, the country’s newest acting president sought to project calm.”Although we are facing unexpected challenges once again, we are confident that our robust and resilient economic system will ensure rapid stabilisation,” Choi said Friday.The 61-year-old career civil servant has inherited a 2025 budget — adopted by the opposition alone — which is 4.1 trillion won ($2.8 billion) less than the government had hoped for.”There are already signs the crisis is having an impact on the economy,” Gareth Leather of Capital Economics wrote in a note to clients, citing the dip in consumer and business confidence. “The crisis is unfolding against a backdrop of a struggling economy,” he added, with GDP growth expected to be just two percent this year, weighed down by a global slowdown in demand for semiconductors.”Longer term, political polarisation and resulting uncertainty could hold back investment in Korea,” Leather wrote, citing the example of Thailand, another ultra-polarised country whose economy has stagnated since a coup in 2014.- Democratic resilience? – But other economists noted that the South Korean economy has so far weathered the chaos well.As early as December 4, the day after Yoon declared martial law following a budget tussle with the opposition, the central bank promised to inject sufficient liquidity to stabilise the markets, and the Kospi Index has lost less than four percent since the start of the crisis. “Like everyone, I was surprised when Yoon took those crazy measures,” Park Sang-in, a professor of economics at Seoul National University, told AFP. “But there was a resilience of democracy.””We come from being an underdeveloped country to one of the world’s most dynamic economies in very few years, and Yoon Suk Yeol is a side effect of the growth,” he added.”Korean society was mature enough to counter his crazy actions.”

Authorities in Brazil said Friday they were probing Chinese auto giant BYD and one of its contractors for suspected “trafficking” of Chinese workers who were building a factory in the South American country.Federal prosecutors in Brazil are weighing possible criminal action after labor inspectors found 163 Chinese workers “in slave-like conditions” at the construction site in the northeast state of Bahia, a government statement said.The workers, employed by BYD contractor Jinjiang Open Engineering, were viewed as “victims of international trafficking for the purpose of labor exploitation,” said the statement.A Chinese foreign ministry spokeswoman in Beijing, Mao Ning, said: “We have noted the relevant reports… and are currently verifying the situation.”She added that Beijing “attaches great importance to protecting laborers’ legitimate rights and interests, and has always required Chinese enterprises to operate in line with the law and regulations.”On Thursday, BYD and Jinjiang were quizzed by Brazilian government ministries, which said “the companies committed to collaborate in protecting the rescued workers.”- Allegations denied -On Monday, Brazilian officials said they had found labor violations at the site, which is being built to be BYD’s largest electric car plant outside of Asia. Bahia’s regional ministry for works (MPT) ordered construction to be suspended at part of the site.Inspections carried out since November found “degrading working conditions,” including beds in workers’ accommodation lacking mattresses, and one bathroom per 31 workers, an MPT statement said.The workers, who spent long hours under the sun, had “visible signs of skin damage,” the statement said.The MPT added that it suspected “forced labor,” with workers’ passports confiscated and their employer “retaining 60 percent of their salary.”After the allegations were made public, BYD’s Brazilian subsidiary said it had broken its contract with the Jinjiang subsidiary responsible for work on the site. It added that it had sent the 163 workers to stay in hotels.BYD spokesperson Li Yunfei blasted the allegations of human trafficking in a post made to his personal Weibo social media account on Thursday.”In terms of smearing Chinese brands, smearing China and attempting to damage the China-Brazil friendship, we have seen how the relevant foreign forces maliciously collaborate and engage in deliberate smearing,” Li wrote in his post.Jinjiang on Thursday — in a statement issued before the online hearing with Brazilian authorities — denied the slavery allegation.The company said the accusations “seriously damaged the dignity of Chinese people” and claimed it “made our staff feel seriously insulted and that their human rights have been violated.”Brazilian authorities said they were requiring Jinjiang to take the 163 workers to the police to register them in Brazil’s tax system so they could be properly paid.They also said the company must ensure that seven of the workers due to return to China on January 1 are given air tickets and $120 in travel expenses.The Brazilian authorities said a new hearing was set for January 7 for the companies to present their remedies for the labor violations that were identified.

Hopes for a Santa Claus rally on Wall Street fell Friday as tech stocks slid lower, while a weaker yen lifted Japanese equities.US indices slumped to end the holiday week, with the tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite losing 1.5 percent.Shares in Tesla were closed around 5.0 percent lower, while those in AI chipmaker Nvidia shed around 2.0 percent.Wall Street stocks have historically performed well around the year-end holidays in what is popularly known as a Santa Claus rally.A Christmas Eve jump in equities got the Santa rally off to a flying start and indices barely budged in Thursday trading.Briefing.com analyst Patrick O’Hare also pointed to an increase in 10-year US Treasury bond yields to around 4.6 percent, which he noted is a rise of nearly 0.9 percentage points since the US Federal Reserve made its first recent interest rate cut in September.”The Fed doesn’t hold sway over longer-dated maturities like it does over shorter-dated securities, so the bump in rates at the back end of the curve is being watched with an anxious eye as a possible harbinger of a pickup in inflation and/or the budget deficit,” O’Hare said.Wall Street stocks took a knock earlier this month when the Fed indicated it would likely cut interest rates less than it had previously expected to.That was in part because of uncertainty tied to President-elect Donald Trump’s vow to raise import tariffs, which could boost inflation that is already proving sticky.In Asia, Japan’s Nikkei index closed up nearly two percent, with the yen’s recent weakness proving a boon for major exporters. The yen hit 158.08 per US dollar on Thursday evening — its lowest in almost six months — following comments made by Bank of Japan Governor Kazuo Ueda that failed to give a clear signal on a possible interest rate increase next month.Recent data has showed Japan’s inflation rose for a second month in December, while industrial production declined less than expected in November and retail sales came in higher than estimated last month.Japan’s government also on Friday approved a record budget for the next fiscal year, ramping up spending on social welfare for its ageing population and on defense to tackle regional threats.In Seoul, the stock market closed down one percent after the won plunged to a nearly 16-year low of 1,487.03 against the dollar on Friday morning.South Korea is struggling to emerge from political turbulence in the wake of President Yoon Suk Yeol’s martial law declaration this month, which prompted his impeachment.Acting President Han Duck-soo was also impeached Friday in a vote that prompted governing party lawmakers to protest with angry chants and raised fists.South Korea’s business outlook for January fell in the Bank of Korea’s composite sentiment index, the biggest month-on-month slide since April 2020, according to data based on almost 3,300 firms released Friday.In Europe, Frankfurt’s DAX index rose after German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier dissolved parliament on Friday and confirmed the expected date for the early general election, emphasizing the need for “political stability” in Europe’s largest economy.- Key figures around 2115 GMT -New York – Dow: DOWN 0.8 percent at 42,992.21 (close)New York – S&P 500: DOWN 1.1 percent at 5,970.84 (close)New York – Nasdaq Composite: DOWN 1.5 percent at 19,722.03 (close)London – FTSE 100: UP 0.2 percent at 8,149.78 (close)Paris – CAC 40: UP 1.0 percent at 7,355.37 (close)Frankfurt – DAX: UP 0.7 percent at 19,984.32 (close)Tokyo – Nikkei 225: UP 1.8 percent at 40,281.16 points (close)Seoul – Kospi: DOWN 1.0 percent at 2,404.77 (close)Hong Kong – Hang Seng Index: UP 0.1 percent at 20,116.93 (close)Shanghai – Composite: UP 0.1 percent at 3,400.14 (close)Euro/dollar: UP at $1.0429 from $1.0424 on ThursdayPound/dollar: UP at $1.2579 from $1.2526Dollar/yen: DOWN at 157.89 yen from 158.00 yenEuro/pound: DOWN at 82.87 pence from 83.19 penceWest Texas Intermediate: UP 1.4 percent at $70.60 per barrelBrent North Sea Crude: UP 1.2 percent at $74.17 per barrelburs-rl/rlp/bys/sms

Montenegro said Friday it will extradite to the United States the South Korean cryptocurrency specialist Do Kwon, who is also wanted by Seoul for the multi-billion-dollar bankruptcy of his company, Terraform Labs.His lawyers denounced the decision as illegal and contrary to European conventions on extradition.For months, Seoul and Washington have been seeking the South Korean’s extradition for his suspected role in a fraud linked to his company’s failure, which wiped out about $40 billion of investors’ money and shook global crypto markets.Justice Minister Bojan Bozovic “issued a decision approving the extradition of the accused, Kwon Do Hyung, to the United States of America,” the justice ministry said, referring to him by his full name.The decision followed a year and a half of court rulings and subsequent reversals regarding his extradition.”It was concluded that the majority of the criteria prescribed by law favour the extradition request” from the United States, the ministry added in a statement.The crypto tycoon was arrested in March 2023 at the airport in Podgorica, the Montenegrin capital, while preparing to board a flight to Dubai, in possession of a fake Costa Rican passport.Before his arrest, he had been on the run for months, fleeing South Korea and later Singapore, before his company went bankrupt in 2022.- ‘Stablecoin’ collapse -After a series of rulings by the Montenegrin courts, approving and then cancelling extradition requests, the country’s Constitutional Court lifted the final hurdle on Tuesday.It said in a ruling that previous proceedings “ensured the appellant’s right to a fair trial and did not raise concerns about a possible violation of the right to family life”.The court also said that Kwon, during the hearing, “personally consented to expedited extradition to both the Republic of South Korea and the United States”.Kwon’s Montenegrin lawyers, Marija Radulovic and Goran Rodic, said in a statement to AFP that they had not been provided with the ministry’s full decision.They called that “a drastic violation of Do Kwon’s fundamental human rights, namely the right to defence and the right to appeal”.Montenegro had already deported Kwon’s business partner — identified only by his initials J.C.H. — to South Korea in early February.Terraform Labs created a cryptocurrency called TerraUSD that was marketed as a “stablecoin”, a token that is pegged to stable assets such as the US dollar to prevent drastic fluctuations.Do Kwon successfully marketed them as the next big thing in crypto, attracting billions in investments and global hype.Media reports in South Korea described him as a “genius”.But despite billions in investments, TerraUSD and its sister token Luna went into a death spiral in May 2022.Experts said Kwon had set up a glorified Ponzi scheme, in which many investors lost their life savings.He left South Korea before the crash and spent months on the run.In January, Terraform Labs officially sought bankruptcy protection in the United States.The bankruptcy filing would allow Terraform “to execute on its business plan while navigating ongoing legal proceedings, including representative litigation pending in Singapore and US litigation involving the Securities and Exchange Commission”, the company said in a statement.It said it also intended to “meet all financial obligations to employees and vendors”.Cryptocurrencies have come under increasing scrutiny from regulators after a string of controversies in recent years, including the high-profile collapse of the exchange FTX.